If you’re new around here, thanks for stopping by and welcome! I am Lauren Caron, an interior designer and the founder of Studio Laloc, an interior design firm based in Seattle, Washington. On the side my husband and I are remodeling our home that I’ve given its own hashtag #ourseattlecraftsman. We’ve renovated our kitchen, scullery, and in the last One Room Challenge, we renovated our powder room. I’m excited to be participating as a guest again and hope you’ll follow along as we remodel our dining room! If you missed last week’s post please check here to read it.

A quick disclaimer about this week:

We made the difficult decision to put our rat terrier Max down on Friday 10/23/20. I made the arrangements a little over a week ago and had been thinking about it everyday leading up to the date. To say the past few weeks have been hard have been an understatement.

We adopted Max over 8 years ago and fell madly in love with him. He came to us age unknown (in the past two years an eye doctor aged him at about 15 or 16) with a number of ailments. He had epilepsy, hypothyroidism, and later in life, heart disease. He was always on a ton of medications and required so much care and attention. In the past two to three years he developed dementia, which I’ve been told is common with dogs that have epilepsy. His dementia gave him practically crippling anxiety. The anxiety made him lose control of his bladder, so he was in diapers almost 24/7 from April until his last day. He paced for hours each day, often in circles due to some sort of brain trauma that may have been caused by the epilepsy. Though he wasn’t an easy dog to care for, he was extremely loving and brought us so much joy and humor through the years. He was always a ball of energy and even until his last day he would run around the house like a terrier after each walk. He loved his wife (by arranged marriage) Rita Mae and would often snuggle up and give her kisses. He was a great dog and we will deeply miss him. I’ve shared some images of him through the years on my Instagram feed and in my stories, which I’ll save to a highlight. So, with all of that said, I am using the ORC as a source of distraction. Though I will admit, it has been difficult to stay on task. Please bear with me. :) On to the post…

It’s week three and we have been moving along on the room. I was feeling like I was in a good place, until I received the email from the fabric finishing company letting me know that due to Covid, the lead times are pushed back and the chair fabric won’t be completed with finishing until November 5th. So figuring in shipping time and then the time it will take for my upholsterers to do their magic, I’m not banking on having the chairs in time. It’s a bummer, but not the end of the world.

Knowing now that I won’t be able to meet the timeline has definitely allowed me to relax a little. I am still planning to finish everything else that is basically within my control, and will just hope that the chairs will be completed in time.

This week I finished painting the ceiling the light blue. It’s definitely subtle and some may think I should have gone darker, but I like the way it feels. It’s good for the dark gray days we get in Seattle. I was mostly concerned that the blue ceiling would bring down the room and add weight, which is what I really did not want to do.

The next step in the process of this room is to oil the wood paneling. The wood paneling is still in wonderful condition. It just needed a bit of conditioning and a light stain to create consistency where some parts have changed tone or been nicked. I also found several instances where paint dripped on the wood. This is by far my least favorite part of the process (even over wallpaper) but is important and necessary. To start, I only did the sections that were in contact with where the wallpaper will be and I’ll go back to finish the rest of the wood probably this weekend.

Then I moved on to starting to wallpaper. The plan was to finish the wall that the large Hepplewhite sideboard my mother sent is set against. We had to empty the POD and have it picked up by the 21st to avoid paying for an additional month of storage. So everything came in to the house (it’s a mess) and the sideboard needed to go where it was going to live permanently. To make my life easier, I wanted the paper completed in that one spot first.

This paper is a challenge, like all wallpaper ends up being. The issue with this paper however, is that it’s 39” wide. 39” is a challenge for my wing span to both hold it up on the wall and set it against the seams. I figured out quickly that it was going to be a two person job. I had to keep interrupting my husband from his work to help me hold the paper while I set it and cut the top and bottom edges.

The plans for this week are to complete the wallpaper, finish oiling the walls, and to start working on the shelving and built ins. The glass company has finished the mirror and glass components. I’m excited about this little secret glass cabinet. My mother sent me a lot of antique glassware along with china. She is downsizing, while I will now have a stocked dining room ready for future dinner parties.

I’ve also started thinking about the artwork I’m putting in this room. Have two prints that I’m really excited to share. I dropped them off at my framer for repair work and we discovered that they were last framed sometime around 1872! We were able to find this out through newspapers that were placed between the print and the back panel. Such a fun discovery. Another reason why I LOVE antiques.

Lastly, still want to wait to share the design of the chairs. I’m hoping when the fabric arrives at my upholsterer I’ll be able to share a bit of the design process with you all. For now, you’ll have to wait!

Thanks for following along and reading about the process. Let’s look at the To Do List